A Peach of a Murder — Livia J. Washburn

All year round, retired schoolteacher Phyllis Newsom is as sweet as pie peachpie, of course, made with Parker County peaches, the sweetest in the state of Texas. All year, that is, except during the Peach Festival whose blue ribbon has slipped through Phyllis's fingers more than once....

Everyone's a little shaken when the corpse of a no-good local turns up underneath a car in his own barn. But even as Phyllis engages in some amateur sleuthing, she won't let it distract her from outbaking her rivals and winning the upcoming Peach Festival contest.

She and all the other contestants guard their secret original recipes with their lives--and talk a whole lot of trash. With her unusual spicy peach cobbler, Phyllis hopes to knock 'em dead. But that's just an expression--never in her wildest dreams does she think her cobbler will actually kill a judge. Now she's suspected of murder, and she's got to bake this case wide open....